Iraq War embed Rob McClure, witness to war crimes he didn’t report, suffers phantom pain in gonads he never had.

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- Today Occupy Denver political prisoner Corey Donahue was given a nine month sentence for a 2011 protest stunt. Judge Nicole Rodarte’s unexpected harsh sentence came after the court read the victim statement of CBS4 cameraman Rob McClure, who said he still feels the trauma of the uninvited “cupping [of his] balls” while he was filming the 2011 protest encampment at the state capitol. Donahue admits that McClure was the target of a “nut-tap”, but insists it was feigned, as occupiers demonstrated their disrespect to the corporate news crews who were intent on demonizing the homeless participants even as Denver riot police charged the park. Though a 2012 jury convicted Donahue of misdemeanor unwanted sexual contact, witnesses maintain there was no physical contact.

Of course simply the implication of contact would have humiliated McClure in front of the battalion of police officers amused by the antic. That’s authentic sexual trauma, just as a high school virgin is violated when a braggart falsely claims to have of engaged them in sexual congress. Donahue was wrong, but how wrong? Can professionals who dish it out claim infirmity when the tables are turned?

Ultimately the joke was on Donahue, because his mark turned out to be far more vulnerable than his dirty job would have suggested. The CBS4 cameraman who Donahue picked on was a louse’s louse.

Off limits?
While some might assert there is no context which would excuse touching a stranger’s genital region, I’m not sure the rule of no hitting below the belt is a civility to which folks facing riot cops are in accord. Protesters can’t shoot cops, they can’t spit at cops, in fact protesters have to pull all their punches. Some would have you believe demonstrators should do no more than put daisies in police gun barrels, all the while speaking calmly with only pleasant things to say.

Let me assure you, simply to defy police orders is already a humiliation for police. What’s some pantomimed disrespect? Humiliating riot cops is the least unarmed demonstrators can do against batons and shields and pepper spray. Should the authorities’ private parts be off limits for a public’s expression of discontent? Jocks wear jock straps precisely because private parts aren’t off sides.

It’s tempting to imagine that all cops are human beings who can be turned from following orders to joining in protestations of injustice and inequity. This is of course nonsense. But it’s even more delusional to think corporate media cameras and reporters will ever take a sympathetic line to the travails of dissidents. Media crews exploit public discontent just as riot cops enjoy the overtime. Media crews gather easy stories of compelling interest from interviewees eager to have their complaints be understood.

Corey Donahue
On October 15, 2011, Rob McClure turned his camera off when the narrative wasn’t fitting the derogatory spin he wanted to put on the homeless feeding team which manned Occupy Denver’s kitchen, dubbed “The Thunderdome.” Donahue observed the cameraman’s deliberate black out of the savory versus the unsavory and reciprocated with the crowd pleasing nut-tap. In the midst of this circus, Colorado State Troopers, METRO SWAT, and city riot police charged the encampment and made two dozen arrests.

It was hours later, perhaps after reviewing police surveillance footage, that McClure conferred with police commanders and agreed to press charges for the nut-tap. Corey Donahue was one of the high visibility leaders of the crowd. He’d been involved in multiple arrests, but this time his bond would be higher and harder to post because instead of the usual anti-protest violations, Donahue would be charged with sex crime.

Ultimately Donahue sought political asylum in South America rather than face having to report for the rest of his life as a sex offender. The offense was only a misdemeanor and his trial was a miscarriage of justice. Attorney friends later convinced Donahue to return to the US because this crime was arguably not sex related and was likely to be overturned on appeal. Likewise, a sentence was unlikely to exceed time served as the “nut-tap” paled in comparison to the police brutality and excessive force which has since ensued. Neither Judge Rodarte or victim Rob McClure got the memo, and it wasn’t the first time McClure failed to frame public outcry in the context of brutal militarized repression.

It turns out McClure’s own self respect was probably way too fragile to have ventured to cast stones at the slovenly homeless occupiers.

Rob McClure
Cameraman Robert McClure had been an embedded reporter in Iraq in 2004. You might expect such a experience to have toughened him up, or expanded his empathy for critics of US authoritarian brutality, but that is to underestimate the culpability of the corporate media war drum beaters.

And McClure’s guilt ran deeper that that. According to his CBS4 bio, McClure was reporting from a major military detention center. It turns out McClure covered Abu Fucking Ghraib. In 2004 McClure’s assignment was to distort what happened there as rogue misconduct. No thanks to fuckers like McClure, the Abu Ghraib techniques were later confirmed to be standard protocol. The US torture and humiliation of prisoners was systemic.

McClure’s coverage for CBS4 specifically glorified Dr. Dave Hnida, otherwise a family physician from Littleton, but in the service of the military as a battlefield surgeon assigned to treat prisoners of war. While it sounds commendatory to attend to the health of our sworn adversaries, in practice that job involves most commonly reviving prisoners being subjected to interrogation. Hnida’s task was to keep subjects conscious for our extended depredations. Medical colleagues call those practitioners “torture docs”. They shouldn’t be celebrated. They should lose their medical licenses.

So that’s the Rob McClure who wrote Judge Rodarte to say that after all these years, having witnessed unthinkable horror and sadistic injustice, while still spinning stories to glorify American soldiers and killer cops and power-tripping jailers, the memory of Corey Donahue’s prank made his balls hurt.

I sent you a poke

Posted on November 9, 2017 by NMT

While thou beholdest

the mote that is in

thy brother’s eye,

considerest a finger

in thine.

I am being prevented from defending myself in Denver Municipal Court

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Eric Brandt

What I filed today in Denver Municipal Court, as my jury trial is about to begin…

DEFENDANT’S ASSERTIONS, NOTICES, OBJECTIONS AND SUPPLEMENTAL RECORD
The Defendant, Eric Patrick Brandt – sui juris and pro se, having been ordered silenced by the judge from making any record of objections, arguments, or any other statement in retaliation for challenging the validity of the judges authority and needing to ensure sufficient record of defendant’s concerns and objections, do hereby enter into the record numerous documents anticipated will be essential should he need to appeal a conviction following trial.

Broadly, the Defendant broadly alleges the judicial bias is so intense that a fair trial is not just unlikely but in fact unintended. He has been treated to conditions and rulings uniquely applied where quick and inexpensive convictions with immediate long jail sentencing is the justice the City desires above the Defendant’s rights.

Besides vindictive actions of police, prosecution and the judge, the Defendant continues to suffer from counsel that is unresponsive, unzealous, and ineffective. The entire situation is a stream of apathy, incompetence, corruption and conspiracy bearing no resemblance to the liberty and justice of a free people protected by constitution.

This is, sadly, a concerted effort to silence a prominent, harsh, and very tenacious critic of government abuses against the people. The Defendant objects to the entire proceedings of the cases listed above and preserves for appellate review any issue, currently known or unknown, which might exist or be thought to exist whether raised specifically during the proceedings or not. The Defendant expressly preserves for appellate review the issues raised in this supplemental record.

[The 2015 Protest]
This case is one of about a dozen cases brought against this defendant and others stemming from a group of activists two-month long non-stop 24/7 protest against police brutality, unjust prosecutions and ordinances and practices abusive to the homeless as well as advocating for jury nullification and human rights. This action was in direct response to the felony arrests of the defendant and one Mark Iannicelli alleging the distribution of jury nullification literature constituted jury tampering which resulted in a federal civil rights lawsuit and the issuance by the federal court of an injunction barring Denver Police from arresting those who would share jury nullification messages and a finding that the courthouse plaza was a traditional free speech zone 24/7.

Denver Police responded in massive forces immediately within hours the first day activists returned to the plaza confiscating materials and property and issuing arrests for practically anything BUT jury nullification.

During the next 56 days, the City evolved ever novel tactics clearly attempting to drive the activists away from the courthouse. Responses with militarized riot police numbering sometimes near 100 regularly stormed the group any hour of the day or night.

[Arrests]
There were arrests for Obstructing Public Passageways for the existence of small tents, carts, and various other personal property and property was booked into evidence, taken for storage, or immediately discarded as trash almost every day.

DPD conspired with the City Attorney’s office and Public Works, at a minimum, first attempting to criminalize activists having any property, claiming obstruction of a public passage. Immediately the police misapplied codes regarding ENCUMBRANCES and issued almost daily unlawful orders, making arrests for failure to obey those unlawful orders. Specifically, the City asserted a criminal consequence under color of a complex civil question expressly under the authority of Public Works; Denver Police in fact have no authority regarding encumbrances.

The City Attorney’s office ordered signs be erected asserting 49-246 D.R.M.C. criminally applied to any thing what so ever on the plaza. This unlawfully legislated policy by the judicial and executive bodies defied the separation of powers and the activists defied their unlawful policy despite repeated arrests for nearly 30 days.

Then the City Attorney’s Office called Public Works and ordered 36 signs to be erected at various city building plazas instituting an overnight curfew subject to arrest for trespassing which was successful, immediately forcing the activists to move across the street at night instantly quashing the effectiveness of the activists speech to almost nothing; the group could not recover from this curfew action and dwindled over three weeks until the Police delivered a fatal blow confiscating everything the activists owned during a cold rain storm.

Again circumventing the safeguards of the separation of powers, the very entities being most directly impacted by the activists message – the city attorneys for unjust prosecutions and jury nullification and the police for abuses, beatings, killings, and other misconduct – took deliberate actions and conspired to establish a city-wide curfew policy without the approval of the legislative body, lacking any significant and legitimate government interest, and in direct retaliation for protected speech with the intent and indeed result of silencing that voice.

[The Prosecutions]
In excess of 20 criminal prosecutions followed in the wake of that intense 56 days. The vast majority of defendants either prevailed, appealed, or received sentences much lighter than prosecution desired. This defendant was subjected to the most cases filed and prosecutors were not achieving their goals with him either.

Furthermore, defendants enjoyed large numbers of activists showing court support which effectively brought anti-police and anti-prosecution messages directly into the courthouse. Discovery issues, overloaded ADC, witness issues, and unexpected family death with ADC lead to the Defendant’s cases being repeatedly continued out for over a year.

During this time the Defendant aggressively investigated the conspiracy between the various departments and the unlawful institution of the encumbrance and curfew policies. The City was tight-lipped about the subjects and concrete evidence eluded discovery. Scant pieces of evidence painted a circumstantial picture but the evidence was insufficient to compel the Courts to grant subpoenas or permit use at trial to show motive and attack credibility. Despite nexus of this concerted plan through almost every case, each case was handled as it’s own unique package.

[A Special Judge]
Ultimately this defendant was assigned a hand-picked judge – Frederick Rodgers – and assigned entirely to his own courtroom – the unused 4B. The details of the assignment are unclear except that it appears Judge Teresa Spahn likely requested the special treatment, and Rodgers has made comments on the record indicating he was assigned to move the defendant’s cases along and that it was desired to get these cases out of the general sessions dockets. The Defendant alleges this was a deliberate act to further isolate the activists from the people in the general sessions corridor and to a courtroom that was essentially vacant.

Rodgers issued a very bizarre order concerning conduct on August 24th, 2016 which was unknown to the Defendant until the night before his September 7th trial setting. Attached with this filing – because oddly enough the clerks cannot find the order filed in any of the defendant’s case files but furnished a copy from an email they found – the strange order, which published the Defendant’s other acts as well as his associates acts along with a claim these associates create serious disruptions, was published loud and clear to the prospective jurors waiting to enter the courtroom and to the actual jurors during breaks.

It is undoubtedly this 3-page document directed against alleged disruptions coupled with the constant presence of up to a dozen armed sheriff’s deputies throughout the proceedings that caused the jurors in that trial to ask the court to assign extra law enforcement to escort them to their vehicles. It was this first Rodgers trial where the Defense council withdrew for ineffectiveness after being unable to meet with the Defendant on the case or go over discovery, then the Defendant was denied new council, forced to proceed pro se, denied discovery, and even denied the right to subpoena witnesses essential to his defense. Withdrawn Council was ordered under his express objections to remain as assistance of council – a claim the judge denied in another strange order entered after the trial.

The Court then denied the entry of evidence clearly defining the terms ENCUMBRANCE and OBSTRUCTION which was essential to the police were unlawfully applying a criminal penalty to a civil code.

The inevitable conclusion of course was a conviction rendered by six terrified jurors followed by immediate sentencing and remand to custody. The remand was thwarted when a very clearly irritated judge was forced to research and agree with the Defendant that a stay of execution was MANDATORY under Rule 37f and a very clearly irritated judge.

[The Missing Oath]
From the very beginning, the Defendant objected to Rodger’s authority and has repeatedly challenged his jurisdiction and demanded a showing in the record he was lawfully empowered to preside over his cases. The defendant was already aware of issues Rodgers had with his qualification. Rodgers was already on a watch list of bad judges. As such, the Defendant had already attempted to obtain a copy of his Oath of Office from the Clerk and Recorder’s office.

Constitution, statute and code obligate a Denver Municipal Court Judge SUBSCRIBE AND FILE WITH THE CLERK AND RECORDER’S OFFICE AN OATH OF OFFICE BEFORE ACTING AS A JUDGE. The consequences for neglecting to accomplish this requirement is that the person has no authority, their office is IPSO FACTO VACANT and all findings, Judgments, orders etc are NULL AND VOID.

Frederick Barker Rodgers did not file an oath of office as required and there have been numerous attempts by the defendant and others in the past year to obtain it. The De Jure Peoples Grand Jury indicted Rodgers for oath problems while he was in Gilpin County and complete copies of that indictment were entered into the record on all three of my then pending cases. I advised Rodgers in court to put his house in order before peering into mine.

I then demanded records showing his appointment as a retired judge. The presiding judge’s clerk responded with a letter stating there are no such records and she offered a copy of his oath of office – signatures redacted for privacy. That oath of office was dated July 27, 2011! I demanded a non-redacted oath and demanded it to be the one filed with the clerk and recorder’s office as required by law. She responded with a redacted signature copy of a copy copy showing a received stamp dated 2015DEC02!

In court next, Rodgers proudly displayed that original oath of office in a gold frame on the bench. It bears no received stamp. At the same time Stephen Nalty obtained a certified copy of the oath from the clerk and recorders office. This time the oath existed where it had not several times before. This oath copy was not redacted and most disturbingly did not bear the received stamp which was passed off to me on the copy claimed to have been filed. Clearly hanky panky is going on.

To date the City has failed to show Rodgers has any lawful appointment. He is 76 years old, has no contract, has no valid oath of office, has no official bond, and he was assigned to my cases “to move things along” which I allege means get me convicted and in jail.

OBJECTION TO ORDER OF SILENCE
After filing his indictment into the record, Rodgers issued an order of silence and removed me to a secret room when I objected. This is in retaliation for the indictment and oath demand as I have never created a disruption before in his court. He also beefed up security and has me under armed guard of 4 to 6 deputies all the time. I object to not being allowed to address the court and I object to being treated like a criminal under guard.

NOTICE OF INEFFECTIVE LEGAL COUNCIL
My attorney has had a constant history of not responding to me and not doing the research I require in my case. The email record is repeat with my objections to her lack of commitment to my cases.

OBJECTION TO UNIQUE / UNEQUAL ENVIRONMENT
I was removed from the 3rd floor and given my own special courtroom with my own special (imposter) judge because Judge Theresa Spahn was mad at me for my free speech critical of her performance WHILE OUTSIDE ANY CASES SHE WAS CONDUCTING. She was mad because our group is helpful to other defendants and our assistance to them has resulted in them achieving success in their cases. The city is upset they are losing our cases left and right and they want to separate us from the masses and get us convicted. Ho better than Rodgers – who doesn’t let good law and reason stand in the way of lousy rulings and judgments.

NOTICE OF PRESERVATION OF APPEAL ISSUES
Because I have been silenced and my lawyer is ineffective I hereby reserve the right to raise ANY issue on appeal regardless of it having been preserved on the record.

OBJECTION TO DENIAL OF NEW EVIDENCE
There is new evidence revealed which demonstrates without a doubt there was conspiracy to silence our protest through the misapplication of a civil code. That evidence is being denied despite clearly speaking to prosecutorial motives and credibility of officer’s statements.

CHALLENGE TO ORDINANCE CONSTITUTIONALITY
My lawyer failed to challenge the pedestrian in a roadway ordinance as overbroad as I demanded. I object and preserve for appeal.

ASSERTION CONDUCT PROTECTED FIRST AMENDMENT EXPRESSION
My lawyer failed to file a motion to dismiss as protected expression my actions leading to these charges. I object and preserve for appeal.

CHALLENGE TO JUDICIAL AUTHORITY OF FREDERICK BARKER RODGERS
Rodgers has REFUSED to enter into the record any authority he has to preside over my cases. He is essentially an unauthorized permanent judge with no contract, a 6-year old expired oath of office (which was never properly filed anyway) who is apparently exempt from the 72 year mandatory retirement age and exempt from the people having opportunity to vote him out of office. He has absolutely no authority and apparently perfect immunity to do what ever the city wants him to do. I REJECT FREDERICK RODGERS AND EVERY THIING HE HAS DONE OR WILL DO IS NULL AND VOID. HE IS OPERATING IN AN IPSO FACTO VACANT OFFICE. I OBJECT AND PRESERVE FOR APPEAL.

Monk Brown set up a tent on the plaza. It took a SWAT team to take it down. Now a Denver jury took them down.

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- Homeless Adrian “Monk” Brown was accused of “obstruction” for sitting in a protest tent last August 26th on the plaza of the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Monk was also charged with “interference” with the riot police sent to evict him. A subsequent charge of “failure to obey” was added by prosecutors pressuring Monk to take a plea. After a two day trial which ended Wednesday, a Denver County jury found Monk Brown NOT GUILTY of either obstruction or failure to obey. Owing maybe to a crime scene video that highlighted the brutal irreverance shown by protesters toward DPD officers, the jury did convict Monk of interference. Except now it wasn’t a crime scene. Monk’s attorney Melissa Trollinger Annis is challenging the inconsistent verdict because it’s unlikely interference will stick without the police having a cause for arrest. Monk wasn’t obstructing.

This verdict marks the second time Monk has beaten the obstruction charge. The first was November 17 when Monk was acquitted of erecting a tent in the plaza on August 28, two days after the recent case. Monk put up that tent the moment he got out of jail for his August 26 arrest. He was fully acquitted in that case. Monk’s subsequent arrests in the plaza on September 18 and September 24 were dismissed and dropped, respectively.

Monk’s arrests numbered among the 19 arrests and two citations issued against the plaza demonstrators during a full time Occupy Denver protest which ran from August 26 to October 21, 2015, when DPD effected a final eviction and activist resources became terminally waterlogged. Just as the activists have now become tied up in court, Denver police headquarters are now overburdened with a hoard of tents, tarps, chairs, umbrellas, banners, and drums which must be kept in evidence.

The plaza protest was launched after the arrest of Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt for distributing jury nullification fliers at the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Activists with Occupy Denver won a federal court injunction to prevent such further arrests. With an ongoing legal battle stipulating the plaza as not just a traditional free speech zone, but a designated free speech zone, the city’s backdoor methods of restricting First Amendment Rights could be isolated and exposed.

For too long, the city of Denver has been able to curb free speech through backdoor charges: Obstruction, disturbing the peace, jaywalking, and TRESPASS. Activists are even charged with resisting arrest, when subjects are actively objecting to their unlawful arrest. The days of halting political demonstrations by having riot cops enforce city ordinances such as obstruction may be drawing to a close.

Who okayed Chicago’s $5 million hush payment for killing Laquan McDonald? Did buck stop with Rahm Emanuel?

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Eric Verlo

Laquan McDonald’s murder was covered up for over a year, five million was paid to his family to keep the killing under wraps. The Chicago police officer who shot McDonald was only charged after the video came to light. Laquan McDonald was killed on October 20, 2014, two months after Michael Brown. Ferguson protests were in full swing. Imagine if the communities of South Chicago had seen the video when Black Lives Matter was in ascendance. It’s hard to say from how high heads should roll over this scandal. Were the Ferguson and Baltimore riots countered from above? Was riot police strategy coordinated by agencies above municipal hierarchies like Chicago’s? We know the Baltimore protests were monitored by FBI surveillance flights. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel most certainly should be forced to resign, but the authority which quashed the Laquan video is no doubt sitting on others, and this abuse extends beyond racism. Laquan McDonald’s killing and coverup didn’t just happen 400-odd days ago. It happened in the thick of Black Lives coming to Matter. Chicago cops were deleting Burger King security camera video while Ferguson solidarity protests were happening in Chicago.

Subverting the justice system with Jury Nullification: too radical for radicals?

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Eric Verlo

Here’s our spiel for those burned out on the reformist treadmill. Jury Nullification is not about reforming the justice system or asking power to temper its abuse. This is about convincing ordinary people that as jurors they can upset the whole racist classist for-profit applecart.

Ordinary citizens serving their jury duty can refuse to be par† of the system which funds municipal coffers and supplies the prison system. They can listen to the jury instruction and the legalese box outside of which they are restrained from thinking, and they can say no.

When jurors refuse to convict, prosecutors can’t press charges and cops can’t make arrests.

Jury Nullification doesn’t reform law so much as explode it from within. Not via the legislator, nor civil servant, but through ordinary conscientious people.

Jury Nullification has the potential for radical change. When more people figure this out, these juries will be the pitchforks and torches that riot police can’t stop.

You want to make Black Lives Matter, put them in the hands of subversive jurors.

You want to defeat Denver DA Mitch Morrissey? Load his juries with people who don’t support him.

Undermine the cases authorities bring against people, don’t become preoccupied with prosecuting cops. That’s just reinforcing the power of the prosecutor.

Take away the authority of the police state by denying them guilty verdicts. Acquit arrestees so they can sue for false arrest. Acquit accused people of color on principle. Defeat the racial incarceration problem by halting the conviction of minorities.

End the war on drugs. The war is over if you want it. Just say no to one more mandatory sentence. Tell the judge and prosecutors and your fellow people that the war is over.

Arrests reach seven at weekly protest of two-faced Denver bookstore

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- Occupy Denver’s Tim Calahan and I were arrested and jailed at last Friday’s boycott action against the Tattered Cover Bookstore. This marked Tim’s third citation for drumming, my second, and Janet Matzen’s first. For drumming. Disturbing the peace is what the DPD charges. We maintain the DPD are curbing our free speech. SO NOW I want to tell you the story of how famed civil rights attorney David Lane came to represent us.

The story begins Thursday before the Anonymous “Every5th” march. A couple friends and I were feeling trepidatious about the Anonymous march because the previous month’s Every5th had been abruptly curtailed by riot police. Several Anons were arrested and a number more pepper-sprayed, and so we wondered if we couldn’t get legal advice about how to assert our First Amendment rights without surrendering ourselves to jail. Also on our minds were the past two fridays at the Tattered Cover where citations had been handed out, drums confiscated, and warnings given that if we drummed again, the next arrestees would be jailed. So we went to the celebrated lawyer’s office and tried our luck with the receptionist.

I told her we were activists who were having a rough time with police, we thought they were violating our civil liberties, could David Lane be of any help? She looked at us increduously. We couldn’t just walk in she said, we had to take a card, we had to call in, we could leave a message, they’d call back if they were interested, they might not call back at all, it certainly wouldn’t be right away.

We told her time was rather of the essence, these arrests were as predictable as they were egregious, we didn’t know where to turn and these arrests seemed to present the kind of case in which David Lane specialized. The receptionist repeated her instructions in a tone that reflected she was not sure I wasn’t simply a lunatic.

After making more prolonged and embarassing enteaties, I finally submitted to following her instructions but I insisted too on leaving a written note which gave me further time to expound on our DPD versus the people predicament.

Turning to make our exit, I explained that we would be leaving her office to join a protest at which chances were pretty good we were going to be arrested, but that the next night at the Tattered Cover, we were most definitely going to be arrested. The receptionist made the oddest face as she search my eyes for some sign that I spoke her language. “Wait just a minute please” she told us as she beat a hasty retreat. Within that minute she returned to say “David Lane will meet you in the conference room.”

We spent the next half hour relating the details of our past arrests, how each had been captured on video, in front of witnesses, and how we’d been warned arrests would continue. We offered too that the police were also videotaping assiduously and that their accounts would match ours. David Lane assured us if we were conducting ourselves as we presented and if arrests endured, he would represent us and anyone else who stepped up to the plate. If exercising our freedom of speech became a risk where it was supposed to be right, standing up for us was the least he could do.

That night we hit the streets with a renewed sense of confidence, and the following evening at the Tattered Cover was an empowering experience like no other. As you can see in the photo above, we couldn’t keep our eyes off the half dozen cruisers keeping watch on us. Would they swoop in? When would they descend on us? The anticipation was frustrating. Who should film, who should take whose keys and phone, who did or didn’t want to beat the drum. We were ready for jail, we were ready to tell the officers, as we had the weeks before, that they couldn’t do what they were doing, we knew our rights. This time we could assure our DPD captors that they were asking for trouble in messing with Occupy. Stay tuned!

DPD waits until dark to make 5 arrests, but blunders pretext for May 5 charges

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Eric Verlo

DENVER, COLORADO- Five arrests resulted from last Monday’s Anonymous march, two on the scene and three afterward, but measures employed by combined Municipal, County and Homeland Security forces to suppress the demonstration will likely prove to undermine charges of wrongdoing. Marchers were accused of obstructing the roadway, but all vehicular traffic had already been blocked while ordinary pedestrian usage continued unhindered.

SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT was the least of the DPD’s abuses that night, whose strategies also included INTIMIDATION and direct SUPPRESSION of free speech. During the march participants faced a continuous escort of SUV-mounted riot police, who chose an arbitrary moment to dismount and assault the procession. After the march, a number of participants were met by officers as they neared their home addresses. Some were interrogated, three were arrested. At several times during the demonstration, empty city buses queued to form long barriers to obstruct passerby access to the protestors.

16th Street “Mall Ride” buses were decommissioned to inhibit public view of the march, which prevented the protest being witnessed more widely. It also gave intended commuters reason to be angry at the activists. However the action also negated any useful reason why pedestrians needed to heed a throughway for buses, the only vehicles allowed on the walking mall.

Actually the May 5th march of approximately 50 people was small enough to stick to the sidewalk and it did. Police warnings made over a loudspeaker to “get out of the street” occurred on only transitory occasions and were directed at stragglers.

On the 16th Street Mall the distinction between sidewalk and street was not always clear. On the walking mall bicycle cops used their bicycles to ram marchers in an attempted to allege that the central pedestrian area was off limits. No curbs distinguish this area from the bus lane, but the absence of buses made the distinction mute.

Just after dark, on the march’s final turn toward the state capitol, officers in riot gear suddenly dismounted and thrust into the crowd to arrest two participants they considered to have received three warnings. The action caused a stampede. Activists who didn’t scatter were pushed to the ground by the police. A half hour standoff eventually diffused, the militarized officers were withdrawn, and the tired marchers left to their dispersement area, escorted by the bicycle police.

It was not until later that participants learned of colleagues followed, swarmed in front of their apartments, interviewed, assaulted or arrested for having obstructed the path of buses that were not running.

Should the DPD be allowed to deploy the Mall-Ride buses to block a protest march, and simultaneously hold protesters responsible for getting out of their way? They want to throw cake in our face and have us to eat it too.

On May 5th, “Every 5th” activists were deprived the public audiences they were seeking, blocked from view by municipal vehicle barricades, and forbidden the public space. Neither bus-riders nor dissenters could use the public bus lane because Denver law enforcement commandeered it to squelch free speech.

Pueblo museum excises Mine Workers Union from Ludlow Massacre exhibit!

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Eric Verlo

PUEBLO, COLORADO- 2014 marks one hundred years since the Ludlow Massacre of 1914. A variety of commemorations are planned before the formal anniversary on April 20. I attended one such event on Wednesday, a lecture by a CSU professor to footnote the “Children of Ludlow” exhibit at El Pueblo History Museum. I’m always excitied when attention is paid to Ludlow, a subject regularly left out of American schoolbooks, but I was disappointed to find key elements of labor history excised from the museum’s narrative. Literally. The United Mine Workers of America, the organization central to the strike, which supplied the tent city, and which even today maintains the memorial site, was mentioned only once, IN FINE PRINT! The Ludlow miners voted to strike because the mining companies refused to recognize the UMWA. Unmentioned. The horrors of the atrocity were not tempered, in their explicitness perhaps we think them enough, but there was also the apologist suggestion that some culpability belonged to the miners. I questioned one curator who admitted they were at pains to keep the story “balanced” and that the squeakiest wheel thus far has been the National Guard. Apparently the Guard is offended that its role will be misconstrued. What balance do they want, I wondered. Had they lost children in the “battlezone” too?

Children are at the heart of commemorating Ludlow and at the heart of this preversion of the massacre’s memory. Were they recklessly endangered by their parents and union organizers? Were they dragged into a battlezone? The museum seems to suggest as much, highlighting the beligerence of the miners, mischaracterizing the soldiers, and leaving the union actions largely unexplained.

First I’d like to declare how I tire of the objective irrelevance which results when academics seek the approval of government technocrats. I am also disturbed by educators who pretend blindness to subtle inferences which shape a political takeaway. To them, “remembering” Ludlow seems sufficient in itself. I can hardly see the point to remembering Ludlow unless we have discerned its lessons. Until we are remembering the LESSONS OF LUDLOW, our educators’ self-proclaimed raison d’etre will be self-fulfilling: “history will repeat itself.” This Pueblo exhibit suggests no lesson other than the exploitation of tragedy, and leaves me fearful about the Ludlow commemorations to follow. The anti-union, pro-military climate which prevails these hundred years since the massacre will make for a travesty of a remembrance unless someone with a worker’s perspective speaks up.

NOT BROUGHT TO YOU BY…
Let’s start with this exhibit, which alas has already escaped critique since September. Its full title, as evidenced in the photo above: “Black Hills Energy presents: Children of Ludlow, Life in a Battlezone, 1913-1914.”

I’ll bet curators thought it a measure of truth and reconciliation that the Ludlow presentation was sponsored by a local extraction industry business. Black Hills Energy trades not in coal but natural gas. In fact they’re among the frackers tearing up Southeastern Colorado. I think the irony more likely suggests how the UMWA’s starring role was left on the cutting room floor. There are generic mentions of “the union”, as at right, keeping a ledger of which families were assigned tents, but only in the fine print is the UMWA named as owning the ledger.

BATTLEZONES
More troubling is the skewed framing of the museum’s narrative. It begins with the subtitle, “life in a battlezone.” That’s taking a rather curious liberty don’t you think? The event we accept now as “Ludlow” became a battlezone on April 20, and the regional Coal Field War which followed was a battlezone to which both revenge-seekers and militia thronged, but the tent colonies in which 12,000 lived, 9,000 of whom were the children of the title role, were camps full of families. That they were straffed regularly by the guards makes them shooting galleries not battlegrounds.

Calling Ludlow a battlezone is like calling Sand Creek a “collision” or calling the Middle East a “conflict”. All of these mask the role of the aggressor.

I will credit the curators for offering a candid detail of horrific import. In a description of the day before the massacre, when the Greeks among the immigrants were celebrating Greek Easter, mention is made of the mounted National Guards offered this taunt: “You enjoy your roast today; we will have ours tomorrow.” No one should deny today that the events of April 20, which culminated in the torching of the tents and asphyxiation of women and children, was a premeditated act.

THE CHILDREN
Should the miners have put their children in harm’s way by defying the mining companies? How could they not? As immigrants they didn’t have nearby relatives to foster their children away from the random bullets. Also left unsaid by the display: many of the children had already been working in the mines and counted among those on strike. This was before child labor reforms.

Curiously, the exhibit did include a famous photograph of the notorious activist Mother Jones leading a childrens’ march through Trinidad. The caption explained that Jones “wasn’t above using real children to advance the cause of Colorado’s coal miners.” Emphasis mine. While technically true in a modern context, it’s probably disingenuous to imply someone is using the children when a key issue of the demonstration is CHILD LABOR.

No really. Mother Jones was leading a march of children, many of them workers of the mines, for the reform of labor practices which abused children. This and subsequent campaigns eventually led to child labor laws. Is saying “Mother Jones wasn’t above using children” in any way an accurate characterization?

Compounding the inference that the Children of Ludlow were jeopardized for the cause, was the implication that the miners were combatants who contributed to the battlezone. As the displays progressed in chronological order, the first weapon on display was a rifle used by the miners. Immediately behind it was an enlarged photograph vividly depicting miners posed with two identical specimens.

Moving along the exhibit chronologically, anticipating the rising violence, the museum goers is apparently supposed to register that the strikers were firing too, if not first. Recent historical accounts have deliberated about who fired first. I think the motive is suspiciously revisionist in view of today’s dogma of nonviolence absolutism: if your protest devolves into violence, you deserve every bit of the beating you get.

Whenever it was that the miners began firing, the single militia and three guard casualties were not recorded until after the massacre took place, belying the narrative that the miners invited the massacre. Witnesses conflict about when the three union leaders were executed. I’ll give the museum credit for defying the National Guard in summarizing that among the casualties, three of the miners were “executed”.

PARITY OF WEAPONS
Students of the Ludlow accounts know that many of the miners were better riflemen than the soldiers. Many were immigrants who’d served in Bulkan wars and outmatched Colorado’s green guardsmen. That is not to suggest that the miners and their harrassers were equally armed, yet…

The only other weapon on display is a rifle of vintage used by the national guard. It shares a case with a uniform and sabre, lending it official authority. Also, the rifle is not presented as having been used at Ludlow, so it doesn’t project an aura of culpability. Missing is the machine gun depicted in the photograph of the machine gun nest which fired down upon the camp. It’s depicted with a caption about the Guard being a welcome presence. Missing too is the armored car dubbed the “Death Special”. Obviously the armor protected its operators from being hit by striking-miner bullets as it drove through the canvas encampment, straffing the tents with its mounted machine gun.

HUMANIZING THE PERP
Right after the photo of armed miners was the display at right, with a very contrived bit of spin catering to today’s military families. Although the photo shows soldiers actively aiming their gun at the camp, the caption assures us that the “Ludlow families feel relief with the arrival of National Guard”. This supposition is based on the fact that when the soldiers first arrived they were serenaded with the “Battle Cry of Freedom” and greeted with American flags. Most of the miners being immigrants, they were eager to show their patriotism, but the conclusion drawn here is a terrible mendacity. The miners and union organizers knew full well the purpose of the National Guard. They knew the strikebreaking role it played in famous strikes of the past. The miners feted the soldiers hoping to sway them from their eventual task. Protesters of all eras hold out this hope every time they face riot police.

A following paragraph suggested that by the time the massacre was committed, most of the soldiers had been mustered out and replaced with militia members and company guards. This is slight of hand. After the official inquiry, which was prompted by the public outcry, twenty National Guard soldiers were court martialed. All were acquitted. Is the Guard wanting us to believe they were acquitted because they weren’t there?

This attempt to put a friendly face on the National Guard, coupled with an abdication of effort to give the union its due, seems engineered to appeal to the average Pueblan of today, many probably related to an active-duty soldier and long since indoctrinated against evil unions. When I asked the lecturer about the omission of the UMWA, she prefaced her answer for the audience, explaining that unions of old were not like those despised today. I told her I thought failing to describe the hows and whys of the strike was a real teaching opportunity missed.

HISTORY COLORADO
It’s probably important to point out that the Ludlow presentation at the History Museum was developed with the assistance of History Colorado, which finally shuttered a contested display: a Sand Creek Massacre exhibit with a similar flavor of whitewash. Like labeling Ludlow a battlezone, History Colorado tried to typify Sand Creek as a “collision.”

Also typical of History Colorado is the propensity to address their exhibits to children. Programming for school bus visits invariably dumbs down what can be presented and I hardly think the compromise is worth it. If children ran the world, maybe Disney versions of history would suffice.

I’d like to have seen it highlighted that the Ludlow miners were mainly immigrants who were looked down upon by the residents of Colorado. If the museum audience were the “Children of Ludlow” in the extended sense, as a few descendants probably were, more of us were the children of the soldiers of Ludlow, or the citizens who cheered them on, or joined the militia or built the armored car at Rockefeller’s Pueblo factory. If we’re going to remember Ludlow, we ought to remember our role in it so we don’t do that again. It’s easy to pretend we were the martyrs. In all probability that’s who we will be if the lessons of Ludlow are discarded.

Look at those clowns!

Posted on August 12, 2012 by NMT

Mexico

Germany

Did Kyle Lawrence represent Occupy CS, as its attention-hangers-on assert?

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Eric Verlo

COLO. SPRINGS– Poor Kyle. Not only is the newly suspected-arsonist in a hospital burn unit with third degree burns, but his until-recent colleagues are now laughing at his clumsiness and are belittling his motives. “What did his vandalism accomplish?” –his advice-givers ask, as if sensing a teaching-moment for their Youtube viewers. Well, if Kyle Lawrence INTENDED to burn down a civic justice building, as his cohort alleges, he accomplished THAT. You can’t take that away from him, you polemically-challenged pedants!

But my ire has more to do with why you attention-divas rushed out with public musings at all, drawing the media’s attention to Kyle’s participation with the early Occupy gathering in Acacia Park. Kyle Lawrence, age 22, passed through what became Occupy Colorado Springs like many a disaffected outcast. He carried no responsibility as founder, organizer or strategist, and as it turned out, bore most resemblance to the many itinerants with criminal records that abound in homeless populations. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but of course the local media are going to revel in associating lawbreakers with OCS. Why be the direct conduit?

Would the local media have made the Kyle Lawrence connection on its own? Maybe. But certainly not, I’ll allege, with the bells and whistles provided by people pretending to have the inside dirt on Occupy. You’ve insinuated that other occupiers harbor felonious intentions, pretending that you left OCS as a result. What self-aggrandizing poppycock! Can you be both insiders and outsiders? Begone then, you cretinous sound-backbiters!

Presuming you thought your were stepping up to some moral obligation, I’ll ask this: Do spokespeople for OCS need to make a public statement repudiating Kyle Lawrence’s arson? That’s certainly a local strain of the nonviolence pedagogical virus. In my opinion, absolutely not. The act Kyle committed was a crime — what’s that got to do with Occupy? OCS doesn’t condone crime. To address it implies that crime bears some relation to OCS actions. It doesn’t. Who is held to be in favor of rape, robbery or murder just because they don’t publicly repudiate it? That’s nonsense.

Repudiating anti-societal behavior is a trap, actually, to extract the menace from protest movements. Get a disgruntled populace to repudiate all forms of self defense and they’ll police themselves. To ineffectualness, ideally. Mass demonstrations aren’t met by riot police in order to prevent riots, the deployment of police is meant as a deterrent to the people’s will to assemble. Our freedom of assembly is guaranteed by right because our landlords will constantly scheme to ensure we not practice it. Demonstrations large enough, and giving off an air of sufficient stamina, are what it takes to effect government policy. Toothless crowds, not at all.

This differential is quite obviously seen in the abundant effort to keep occupiers from using tents. Daily protests don’t gather steam. Occupations threaten to give them momentum.

Oh, famously –I think mythically– toothless determination can combat segregation, but it’s never produced regime change or any reform having to do with money, especially at the top. What was desegregation but a privilege which one lower class was forced to relinquish to another? Unfortunately the MLK mythology has been used very successfully to inoculate modern activism. Popular protest has been getting nowhere ever since MLK. Coincidence?

So no repudiation of Kyle Lawrence, on principle. OCS is law abiding and like anyone, presumed innocent until proven guilty. OCS has never advocated violence or lawbreaking, end of story. From an effective activism standpoint, it’s important to remember the St Paul Principles, which advise activists not to criticize the tactics chosen by others. It’s obvious to see why nonviolence zealots condemn the St Paul Principles.

Should Kyle’s actions be addressed? Not as yet, they’re alleged, first of all, and second, it’s hearsay. But if we are to believe Kyle’s accomplice, and before accounting for drunkenness, apparently the act of burning the Green Mountain Falls city building was a deliberate act of protest, misguided whatever, yada yada, but it wasn’t teenage vandalism, burglary or insurance fraud.

If Kyle and his accomplice are found guilty, as the crime so far is understood, it was a politically motivated crime and they will be political prisoners. A menace to society, yes, candidates for incarceration and rehabilitation, lamentably yes, but moral degenerates? Hardly. Make fun of them if you want, but their crime was idealism.

As NYPD destroys Occupy Wall Street, Americans get their own 9-11 moment, a state terrorist attack on their liberty.

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Eric Verlo

UNOCCUPIED WALL STREET- NYPD goons put an end to the Zuccotti Park OWS rebel base tonight. Shall we declare it official, this night of the Occupy Wall Street Smack-down, that images of riot police are now ubiquitous as American Pie? Officer unfriendly closed the airspace, created a no-witnesses buffer zone, drove news crews away under threat of revoking their press passes, and razed the camp, tents, electronics and all, Occupy Denver Thunderdome smash shit up style.

Calls are going out for YOU to occupy your streets. And the day after tomorrow, November 17, is a General Strike. Unless principles of nonviolence [to Capitalism] dictate you may not resist consumerism.

Kind words to share with riot police: Dude, this video will be on the internet forever, where your children will see it.

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Eric Verlo

OCCUPIED DENVER- I heard a lot of taunts aimed at the imposing armored police officers who were crashing our peaceful assembly. Curses, ridicule, warnings, pleas. The best was this admonition:
Dude, this video will go on the internet. Your children will see it.

For #NeverForget 9/11 #LetsRoll types

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Torture, TSA groping, War Crimes, Riot Cops, Post-911 America
This poster says it all, doesn’t it? Between “Never” & “Forget” are the Twin Towers framed by a Pentagon. Then there’s Dumbass & Dumbo, the TSA grope, the GI thumbs up trophy snapshot, Abu Ghraib torture, Guantanamo illegal detention, and to silence those who would complain, the militarized riot police. All smiles. 9/11 Let’s Roll!

IMF pick Christine Lagarde-Obamette updates beau mot Cherchez La Femme

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

One of the boys, literally
IMF DSK replacement Christine Lagarde assumes leadership of the International Monetary Fund today, the world’s most powerful woman. Will she be the spoonful of sweetness to make austerity cuts go down? How’s your blood-sugar crashing on Obama? My guess is this fairy grandmother gambit will go down in Europe like an Obama Smurfette. To further my sexist analogy, imagine Lagarde the stereotypical bank loan officer, absolutely immovable. But Lagarde is personable, kindly, and maternal, and she’s willing to extend your loan, on the condition that you forfeit your house and all your possessions, and rent them from her. In the end you have nothing, but you don’t starve. By the way, the sheriff outside work for her. The IMF and the paramilitary riot police -that’s whose army. It’s a contract re-up you can’t refuse. That’s “austerity,” larceny with the improbably-legitimated veneer of usury, and it’s her last best offer.

Cherchez la femme or “get the woman”, used to be an investigative phrase meaning, find the extra-marital affair behind the political intrigue. The effect of this strategy was so absolute that it came to mean looking for the obvious. And so, isn’t the appointment of the silver-coiffed woman to front the severely PR-challenged, greed-saturated IMF, the obvious choice for a facelift?

Look at the IMF, an old boys network rivaled perhaps only by the World Bank. The solitary Lagarde is the next best thing to the superior exotic, one black man. They didn’t have one, and that novelty might be playing itself out already across the pond.

Augustin Carstens Fat Bastard Speaking of the New World, with Lagarde, the IMF avoided the challenger touted as the champion of emerging nations, Bank of Mexico nomineee and corpulence personified, Augustin Carstens. You might remember Carstens as the obesity-suited Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, who kept begging to be given Mini-Me for a snack.

What an unfortunately apt personification of the banking system Augusten Carstens would have been. Try to find a single photograph that wouldn’t have made the IMF aims plain: the bankers are licking their chops not only for your last penny, they want your ribs.

Mexicans have to brave illegal status in the United States to flee the economic policies enforced by their Fat Bastard.

Egypt’s protesters are owed 302 lives

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Eric Verlo

After Hosni Mubarak did his best last night to bite his thumb at his gaping-mouthed subjects, the heart of humanity aches in anticipation of the potential of angry bloodshed Friday in the streets of Cairo. Egypt’s JAN25 organizers have so far held steady to a winning strategy of nonviolent protest, in spite of the tremendous state repression, and as yet it’s only moved them forward. But Mubarak has proved that the success of demonstrations is not judged by public opinion. Revolutions very traditionally involve an overthrow. Despotic torturers rarely capitulate to appeals to their conscience. Before the revolutionaries can ensure the universal support of the Egyptian people, they will have to commandeer the state’s propaganda machine. Hopefully sympathetic employees will turn it over without forcing the demonstrators to compel its silence. While it might be prudent to guard against provocateurs inciting mayhem, public audacity wanes without momentum. Let’s not discount the gains which the brave youth of Jan25 have won with violence. Tahrir Square would not have been gained without wave after wave of assaults against the ranks of riot police. Returning the thrown stones was the only action which kept Mubarak’s goons from overtaking Tahrir and slitting everyone’s throats. Whether Egypt’s freedom-seekers this Friday take the high road or the low, under fire from Mubarak’s security goons, we must support them.

Egypt passes point of no return, for Mubarak and besieged pro-democracy

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Point of no return in Egypt. Mubarak is overseeing crimes from which he will not be able to walk away. Pro-Democracy demonstrators cannot leave Al Tahrir Square. Not because it is barricaded and besieged by plain-clothed “Pro-Mubarak protesters” but because activists who go home face immediate arrest by the secret police. Even as thugs harass the protesters, unhindered by the Egyptian army, Human Rights Watch expresses most concern for the protest organizers who are vulnerable to infiltrators facilitating their abduction or assassination by sniper. Here’s an illuminating first hand account from an activist who writes as Sandmonkey:

UPDATE 3/3 AM: Colleagues report Sandmonkey apprehended ferrying medical supplies to Al Tahrir Square. First an inspiration, now his statement is prophetic. UPDATE 3/3 tweets: “I am ok. I got out. I was ambushed & beaten by the police, my phone confiscated, my car ripped apart & supplies taken” and “Please don’t respond to my phone or BBM. This isn’t me. My phone was confiscated by a thug of an officer who insults those who call.”

EGYPT, RIGHT NOW!
Thursday, 3 Feb 2011

I don’t know how to start writing this. I have been battling fatigue for not sleeping properly for the past 10 days, moving from one’s friend house to another friend’s house, almost never spending a night in my home, facing a very well funded and well organized ruthless regime that views me as nothing but an annoying bug that its time to squash will come. The situation here is bleak to say the least.

It didn’t start out that way. On Tuesday Jan 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by Anti-Riot Police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us. We managed to break all of their barricades and situated ourselves in Tahrir. The government responded by shutting down all cell communication in Tahrir square, a move which purpose was understood later when after midnight they went in with all of their might and attacked the protesters and evacuated the Square. The next day we were back at it again, and the day after. Then came Friday and we braved their communication blackout, their thugs, their tear gas and their bullets and we retook the square. We have been fighting to keep it ever since.

That night the government announced a military curfew, which kept getting shorter by the day, until it became from 8 am to 3 pm. People couldn’t go to work, gas was running out quickly and so were essential goods and money, since the banks were not allowed to operate and people were not able to collect their salary. The internet continued to be blocked, which affected all businesses in Egypt and will cause an economic meltdown the moment they allow the banks to operate again. We were being collectively punished for daring to say that we deserve democracy and rights, and to keep it up, they withdrew the police, and then sent them out dressed as civilians to terrorize our neighborhoods. I was shot at twice that day, one of which with a semi-automatic by a dude in a car that we the people took joy in pummeling. The government announced that all prisons were breached, and that the prisoners somehow managed to get weapons and do nothing but randomly attack people. One day we had organized thugs in uniforms firing at us and the next day they disappeared and were replaced by organized thugs without uniforms firing at us. Somehow the people never made the connection.

Despite it all, we braved it. We believed we are doing what’s right and were encouraged by all those around us who couldn’t believe what was happening to their country. What he did galvanized the people, and on Tuesday, despite shutting down all major roads leading into Cairo, we managed to get over 2 million protesters in Cairo alone and 3 million all over Egypt to come out and demand Mubarak’s departure. Those are people who stood up to the regime’s ruthlessness and anger and declared that they were free, and were refusing to live in the Mubarak dictatorship for one more day. That night, he showed up on TV, and gave a very emotional speech about how he intends to step down at the end of his term and how he wants to die in Egypt, the country he loved and served. To me, and to everyone else at the protests this wasn’t nearly enough, for we wanted him gone now. Others started asking that we give him a chance, and that change takes time and other such poppycock. Hell, some people and family members cried when they saw his speech. People felt sorry for him for failing to be our dictator for the rest of his life and inheriting us to his Son. It was an amalgam of Stockholm syndrome coupled with slave mentality in a malevolent combination that we never saw before. And the Regime capitalized on it today.

Today, they brought back the internet, and started having people calling on TV and writing on facebook on how they support Mubarak and his call for stability and peacefull change in 8 months. They hung on to the words of the newly appointed government would never harm the protesters, whom they believe to be good patriotic youth who have a few bad apples amongst them. We started getting calls asking people to stop protesting because “we got what we wanted” and “we need the country to start working again”. People were complaining that they miss their lives. That they miss going out at night, and ordering Home Delivery. That they need us to stop so they can resume whatever existence they had before all of this. All was forgiven, the past week never happened and it’s time for Unity under Mubarak’s rule right now.

To all of those people I say: NEVER! I am sorry that your lives and businesses are disrupted, but this wasn’t caused by the Protesters. The Protesters aren’t the ones who shut down the internet that has paralyzed your businesses and banks: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who initiated the military curfew that limited your movement and allowed goods to disappear off market shelves and gas to disappear: The government did. The Protesters weren’t the ones who ordered the police to withdraw and claimed the prisons were breached and unleashed thugs that terrorized your neighborhoods: The government did. The same government that you wish to give a second chance to, as if 30 years of dictatorship and utter failure in every sector of government wasn’t enough for you. The Slaves were ready to forgive their master, and blame his cruelty on those who dared to defy him in order to ensure a better Egypt for all of its citizens and their children. After all, he gave us his word, and it’s not like he ever broke his promises for reform before or anything.

Then Mubarak made his move and showed them what useful idiots they all were.

You watched on TV as “Pro-Mubarak Protesters” – thugs who were paid money by NDP members by admission of High NDP officials- started attacking the peaceful unarmed protesters in Tahrir square. They attacked them with sticks, threw stones at them, brought in men riding horses and camels- in what must be the most surreal scene ever shown on TV- and carrying whips to beat up the protesters. And then the Bullets started getting fired and Molotov cocktails started getting thrown at the Anti-Mubarak Protesters as the Army standing idly by, allowing it all to happen and not doing anything about it. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and there was no help sent by ambulances. The Police never showed up to stop those attacking because the ones who were captured by the Anti-mubarak people had police ID’s on them. They were the police and they were there to shoot and kill people and even tried to set the Egyptian Museum on Fire. The Aim was clear: Use the clashes as pretext to ban such demonstrations under pretexts of concern for public safety and order, and to prevent disunity amongst the people of Egypt. But their plans ultimately failed, by those resilient brave souls who wouldn’t give up the ground they freed of Egypt, no matter how many live bullets or firebombs were hurled at them. They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.

In the meantime, State-owned and affiliated TV channels were showing coverage of Peaceful Mubarak Protests all over Egypt and showing recorded footage of Tahrir Square protest from the night before and claiming it’s the situation there at the moment. Hundreds of calls by public figures and actors started calling the channels saying that they are with Mubarak, and that he is our Father and we should support him on the road to democracy. A veiled girl with a blurred face went on Mehwer TV claiming to have received funding by Americans to go to the US and took courses on how to bring down the Egyptian government through protests which were taught by Jews. She claimed that AlJazeera is lying, and that the only people in Tahrir square now were Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. State TV started issuing statements on how the people arrested Israelis all over Cairo engaged in creating mayhem and causing chaos. For those of you who are counting this is an American-Israeli-Qatari-Muslim Brotherhood-Iranian-Hamas conspiracy. Imagine that. And MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. I recall telling a friend of mine that the only good thing about what happened today was that it made clear to us who were the idiots amongst our friends. Now we know.

Now, just in case this isn’t clear: This protest is not one made or sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood, it’s one that had people from all social classes and religious background in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood only showed up on Tuesday, and even then they were not the majority of people there by a long shot. We tolerated them there since we won’t say no to fellow Egyptians who wanted to stand with us, but neither the Muslims Brotherhood not any of the Opposition leaders have the ability to turn out one tenth of the numbers of Protesters that were in Tahrir on Tuesday. This is a revolution without leaders. Three Million individuals choosing hope instead of fear and braving death on hourly basis to keep their dream of freedom alive. Imagine that.

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

Think Iran is coming down too hard on inciters of protest? Remember Neda!

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Eric Verlo

You might not have expected me to invoke the name of Neda Agha Soltan(i), the Green Revolution bystander “whose name in Farsi means ‘voice'” and whose angelic face adorned every subsequent Iranian reform movement ephemera. Remember the video where pretty Neda was shot by an unseen gunman, left to die on camera, the footage used to rally indignation against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s evident barbarity? Curiously our media chose to break from its usual sensibilities about snuff films. Remember your own blood lust? What fate were you wishing then for poor Neda’s killers? No doubt Iran would like to see justice for Neda too. They’ve conducted inquiries about who killed the unsuspecting martyr. Have you?

The Iranian government blames US operatives for instigating the reformist uprising, prompting Tehran’s secular class to take their grievances to the streets. They point to Iranian student groups organized by nonprofits funded by the West. They hold capitalist rabble-rousers accountable for inciting impressionable consumer wannabes to push against the riot police. They know the US is spending beaucoup black budget bucks to destabilize Iranian society. “Promoting Democracy” in Farsi means subverting leadership, and where there’s been a revolutionary movement against the established order, the USA habitually sets about to breed counter-revolutionaries. But that doesn’t explain Neda.

Political movements have infinitely more potential when there’s a martyr, and it’s a strategy no US adviser leaves to nuance. Movements have succeeded without them, but no psych-ops crafted scenario has done without. You wonder who volunteers for the role? We’ve seen recent examples, I can think of an incident in Honduras, were protesters pretended one of their number had been felled. But such is the weakness of the good guys, they’re not about to kill someone as a means to an end. Can we say the same about the good guys of the CIA?

When the saintly Neda was killed onscreen, the Iranian government immediately suspected a plot. Was it one of their soldiers who killed her, standing at an isolated corner, part of no confrontation? By whose orders would he have fired?

Who said the reelection of Ahmadinejad was rigged? None but the Americans. Who egged on the crowds to overturn a democratically elected government? America. Who branded the reform movement, and levitated it via social media?

Who else but America color-codes its exported “revolutions?”

“Remember Neda” has become the rallying cry of Iranian expats and Shah loyalists in exile. They’ll change their tune when authorities in Iran finger her murderers.

When Iran executes those responsible for the covert machinations meant to provoke an uprising to satisfy the US call for regime change, it’s not for crying out “freedom” but for yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, pointing at Neda.

US story of Viva Palestina? No story.

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Eric Verlo

UPDATE: Live feed of convoy arrival will be streamed by al-Quds TV.

The Viva Palestina aid convoy has been wending its way toward Gaza having left Britain 31 days ago. Now the 200 vehicles are just 40 miles from their destination, and still no coverage in the US media. Last night the 550 convoyers were blocked in the port of El-Arish by Egyptian riot police while interlopers were set upon the nonviolent activists with woodplanks and stones. Those participants who didn’t lose their phones were tweeting for supporters to call their Egyptian embassies, still no word in the US. Google it any way you like, it’s a black out.

This is the third VIVA PALESTINA aid convoy to Gaza. You can find after-the-fact articles about the July 2009 effort mounted by US activists, but nothing current in the mainstream press. Why would America’s compassion for the besieged Gazans not be reflected by its media?

Accounts of the attack are circulating through alternative channels, but nothing’s hit the mainstream.

Among the international agencies, the BBC has kept its reporting limited, but yesterday’s violence broke through. There is active TV coverage in Turkey and Iran, and transnational news agencies
Like Sky News, Al Jazeera, and Ynet, are covering the story. Still NOT ONE report in the US media, what Noam Chomsky confirmed as a media blackout.

Example: The UK Press Association lists one story, Gaza aid Brits ‘beaten by police’, where the headline infers an unverified accusation, and still no mention made of “Viva Palestina” in entire text.

Any ideas about how to break through? There are US participants with the convoy, and the contingent is still not out of danger. Is there anything the American public can do, by way of contacting the State Department to call off its dogs in Egypt, or to expose the billions in aid to Israel and Egypt, the first and second highest recipients of US foreign aid, most assuredly behind the Egyptian making obstacles for the aid convoy, part of its maintaining the siege on Gaza?

The convoy had to wait for those injured last night to return from the hospital, and for those detained to be returned. As a result, the vehicles have now set off from Al-Ashir at sundown, to travel in darkness to the Gaza border crossing at Rafah. Egyptian authorities had been trying to force the convoy to proceed at night to minimize its exposure to the local populations. The police barricades surrounding Viva Palestina, like the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo, were less to contain the activists than about prohibiting Egyptians from joining in.

Meanwhile, hearing of the attack on the aid convoy, Gazans waiting at the border began to riot. There are reports now one Egyptian soldier dead, 35 Palestinians injured, five of them brain dead. But where are you going to hear about it?

For Americans who think they’re being kept informed, that’s the story.

Violent attack on Viva Palestina convoy

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Video footage has reached Turkish TV of last night’s attack on Viva Palestina as the convoyers waited to proceed in El-Arish. Videos show activists with head injuries, some having to be carried off. There were reported windows broken on the convoy vehicles. What a travesty if the aid to be delivered to Gaza will arrive in shambles, courtesy of the Egyptians. We won’t know until sunup. Finally the BBC has reported the story, but not what really happened.

The BBC reports, like ABC Australia, that water canon were turned on Viva Palestina because they refused to comply with Egyptian demands. But witnesses tell of a different progression.

(UPDATE: The UK Press Association lists one story, Gaza aid Brits ‘beaten by police’, where the headline infers an unverified accusation, and still no mention made of “Viva Palestina” in entire text.)

The Irish 4 Palestine blog is maintained based on regular phone and text updates from “their boys” in the convoy. In the thick of the ugliness last night, communications ceased. Then strange voices answered the phones, which had been found dropped on the ground. Finally one phone was answered by an English-speaking woman named Pat who described the attack:

“…the whole thing happened when convoy members were still locked inside this gated compound, then suddenly a very large group of plain clothes “people” arrived at the compound with sticks and stones, they were then allowed into the compound by the Egyptians and began attacking the convoy members trapped inside with nowhere to go. The Egyptians then joined in the attack when the plain clothes vigilantes arrived and went inside to attack.”

Her account was corroborated by ensuing witnesses. What may have motivated the vigilantes is open to conjecture, because we’re led to believe the aid convoy usually met a warm welcome throughout the region.

Malaysian activist Juana Jaafar was providing live play by play and occasional pics throughout the night. Her observations early on may offer one angle:

The gates have been blocked by authorities’ cars and hundreds of riot police waiting outside! Members are getting anxious

Riot cops! And a water cannon truck just arrived. Dejavu ke? Okay damn, a water tank size of 16 wheel petroleum carrier just arrived.

Members sitting at gates … I don’t understand Arabic but I know stuff being said bout “Yahudi” and am feeling uncomfortable. There are Jews in and supporting our mission …

Shit la the jangguts nak tunjuk hero pulak. Bangang ah!

Anti-Semitism is a subject no one wants to mention in polite company, perhaps because it the accusation is so frequently invoked by Israel. In accounts of peace activism in the Middle East, frequently however we read reports of Arab bystanders showing solidarity with peace actions, but declining to join in if there happen to be Jewish activists among the organizers, regardless the cause, even the anti-Zionist ones.

In this case, were the Egyptian police trying to play up the presence of Jewish activists in order to motive the plain-cloths agitators among them to throw stones?

The longer (abridged) sequence of Tweets from Juana Jaafar recounts the night’s adventure.

8PM
Yay! All members are together now as last batch rolls in! We going by the minute now. Autho may impose all sorts on new rules on us like drive in the mid of night so public can’t see us; no fanfare. Some say they may not let all vehicles out so looks like convoy is small.

But rumor has it there’s pizza in the Welsh caravan so am gonna head there :]

The gates have been blocked by autho cars and hundreds of riot police waiting outside! Members are getting anxious

Riot cops! And a water cannon truck just arrived. Dejavu ke?

Okay damn, a water tank size of 16 wheel petroleum carrier just arrived.

9PM
Members sitting at gates. Someone leading a doa. Doa man crying while doa. I don’t understand Arabic but I know stuff being said bout “Yahudi” and am feeling uncomfortable. There are Jews in and supporting our mission …

Shit la the jangguts nak tunjuk hero pulak. Bangang ah!

Standoff with autho in El-Arish port

We have been told there are protests going on right now in Istanbul, London, Chicago and at Egyptian ambassies elsewhere

11PM
All hell has broken lose at the port. Shit flying around and police spraying and gassing. We’re in the gates

12PM
Instigators started moving in from within the police lines and moved on the inside of the police side of the barricades. Convoy members were sitting on the ground when shouts from police lines started and then wham, hell. Just helped bandage a friend’s head

Some people are missing including a Malaysian student who came on his own from the UK. We are trying to find him. He may be arrested

Wisma, a Malaysian student has been detained by Egypt police in El-Arish. Please help.

Calm now. Galloway speaking to us, explicitly named Egyptian regime as instigator of violence. Said now the world can see who is responsible for Gaza siege. We have bend over backwards to come to El-Arish cause Egypt said we’d be welcomed here, instead welcomed with violence.

Galloway says Viva has video taken from meeting room to show special police starting violence. Police then threw stones at meeting room

1AM
Arrested are from Great Britain, USA, Malaysia and Kuwaiti.

One person just got rolled out on a stretcher.

2AM
Things are quiet now. Injured are reluctant to be taken to hospital unless Galloway guarantees Egyptian authorities gives safe passage.

4AM
It’s 415am here. We been camping in our vehicles. Some took refuge in the mosque. Riot police still outside gate + 3 water cannon trucks

Calm now but the mood is shit. Some members also not happy how few others reacted to Egyptian provocation saying we have driven this far in peace.

We’re okay, safe. But freezing. Hope things look better in morn

5AM
For the record: Malaysian boy detained only taking pix at the gates, not involved any other way. Our group mate from Great Britain detained was also just filming

Viva Palestina standoff with riot police

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Eric Verlo

CONTACT YOUR MEDIA OUTLETS TO COVER THE BREAKING NEWS!
Following reports that Egyptian authorities want the convoy to proceed under cover of night, Viva Palestina’s Juana Jaafar reports Egyptian authorities have brought police in riot gear and a water canon — “Shit la the jangguts nak tunjuk hero pulak. Bangang ah!” Zubwe Hatia, Joti Brar, Peter Jones, P. O’Neill, and Abu’Safiyyah tweet from the convoy. Ahmed Fadel from Gaza. Or check Twitter VP3 list.

FROM JOTI: 20:20 GMT
“Full-on battles between convoy boys and Egyptian riot cops. Tear gas, water cannons, rocks throwing.”

If the confrontation worsens, look for updates from reporters on the scene: Lina Attalah and Jano Charbel, relaying through Hossam el-Hamalawy and Cleopatra in Cairo.

Who killed Neda Agha-Soltan?

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The video footage is shocking. An attractive young woman watching the demonstrations in Tehran is struck by a sniper’s bullet and dies before several video cameras. The tragedy is projected unto Facebook and Youtube, with advocates hoping it will galvanize (American) public support for the brave reform movement in Iran. News accounts blame “Basij snipers” on the rooftops. Other protesters have been killed in confrontations with Iranian riot police, without the benefit of video witnesses, much like two million Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis et al. Poor 27-year-old bystander Neda Soltani stood at the quite improbable convergence of bullet and camera –correction– cameras. I don’t have to suggest the scene was staged; whether or not the triggerman was an American is immaterial.

Think about just the improbability of your seeing this video. When was the last time the mainstream press has circulated a snuff film? The average person is embarrassed to watch a person die. It’s exploitive. Even when America was fixated on beheaded hostages, our television gatekeepers refused to broadcast the footage. Many horrific war killing moments have found their way unto Youtube, which antiwar activists could only hope would find wider distribution, if only to bring home the inhumanity of our soldiers’ deeds. It never happens.

The western press is running with this story because it demonizes the apparently naked inhumanity of Islam. Muslims stone women, hang gays, look: the bastards shoot their own people arbitrarily. Curiously our media doesn’t make hay with the hapless victims of US snipers.

The Neda Soltani snuff footage hit internet shores prepackaged with a smiling mug, and a name that translated means “the voice.” Could a casting director have picked a better title character to represent Iran’s repressed? The western press is even poised to outdo the Muslims in indignant piety, already lauding Neda as a martyr, whom we are informed should launch a thousand Shiite funeral processions. Western pundits compare Neda to the first Shiite martyr, the grandson of Mohammed himself.

Of course, also showing excessive Islamic sensitivity, western reporters readily dismiss the vanishing of Neda’s body, to the Muslim tradition of hasty burials. For the record, in case you missed it, Neda dies onscreen from an apparent gunshot. We do not see the bullet strike, nor now can anyone habeas corpus.

If the scenario was acted entirely, given the success with which the girl’s face is being made into an icon, young Neda’s life is probably as utterly expendable now as already depicted. You think you’re mourning Neda now, imagine her fate if this is a hoax.

OR the gunman could just as well have been a US black-op hit-man who had his eye on the videographers approaching innocent Neda. The US military has long admitted that special forces are already operating in Iran. If the Iranian forces are shooting civilian protesters, what’s the harm of helping them out where there’s a camera ready?

When we’re not meant to see it, the soldiers shoot the cameramen too.

It could be the work of Moussavi henchmen, who are our henchmen.

The Green Revolution, or TwitterTM Revolution, rebranded a “Social Media Revolution,” is a fabrication of the US pro-democracy agents working to destabilize Iran. They are hard at work in Cuba, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, and everywhere regimes threaten US globalization by enslavement. Remember the Orange Revolution? Any movement that is color-coded is the work of organizers reading US how-to manuals or attending OTPOR training seminars.

Where are the international voices decrying election fraud in Iran? No one other than the US and its stooges is asserting that populist leader Ahmadinejad did not win by a landslide. Only Iran’s urban middle class has taken to the streets of Tehran. And to protest what? Their minority standing in Iran?

The reformists in Iran are protesting democracy, not the failure of democracy. They are protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hard line against irreligious western economic and colonial policies which traditionally benefit the secular urban elite. “Pro-Democracy” is neoliberal for pro-capitalist plunder.

See: Shah’s Son Backs Iranian Protesters.

Like the “dissidents” of Cuba, the Green greenback-seekers are marching on the CIA’s dime, and being meted the fate of foreign provocateurs. I have no doubt the majority are idealists and are well-intended, but like the Kurds who rose against Saddam Hussein, the US has set them up for slaughter, the sooner to motivate western support for military aggression against their evil regime.

Our media pundits point out that the protest banners are written in English, a sign that the Iranians are desperate to appeal to American viewers. They dismiss Iranian accusations of the demonstrations being US-backed as pure paranoia, and ignore the most simple explanation behind the English slogans, and the websites and networks amplifying the message to English speakers: these materials are being crafted by USAID advisers. This is a propaganda campaign aimed at Western ears, to call for regime change in Iran.

Neda’s Theme is tried and true: Jessica Lynch, Roxana Saberi, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, Neda Salehi Agha Soltan. Onward Christian Soldiers.

The American public won’t believe another fiction about Kuwaiti babies dumped from incubators, or of Belgian children impaled on the bayonets of the evil Hun. So Madison Avenue has upped the amperage. Today’s television armchair adjudicators have to see innocent young women snuffed on film before our eyes. Provided to us by a press too otherwise prurient to show us the mass of death we deal everyday.

The Iranians in the streets, and poor pretty Neda, are being sacrificed by heartless US strategists. I doubt even an errant Iranian bullet can match the American military for cruelty.

The American dyslexia for economics

Posted on December 17, 2008 by Eric Verlo

The interest rate for banks is down to zero. B of A and Citibank are still charging 39%. What again does economic news have to do with me?

The biggest news on the economy was BREAKING NEWS a week ago: the US economy is in a recession, and has been for over a year. Can news a year old still be news? What news exactly are we getting from the experts, economists and other mesmerists paraded on the television every evening?

We consult them on a minute by minute basis, actually, on 24/7 cable news stations, for every hint of a whiff of where the weather vane might indicate the US economy is blowing. If the stock market doesn’t hang on their every diagnosis, it reacts to what unelected, self-made officials say. Now we’re led to understand all that spinning can flip-flop for a year-old contradictory study.

And who’s going to let America know when we’ve hit a full-on depression? Will we be told it before the decade is enshrined post-facto in a Time-Life retrospective? Are those in charge so cynical that they count on the public knowing the truth in spite of their lies, because it’s we who endure the effects in real time anyway? The media can lie about unemployment figures too –what could it possibly matter to the unemployed?

It’s not only ADD. Americans understand why too-sobering statistics are kept from us, lest a post-mortem induce pre. We are the great engine of consumerism, running on pure flattery. I think it’s the same self-defeating fatalism which fuels the life insurance scam. We bet against ourselves. We buy self-help books. We are eternally sick.

But does the economy really work so? Would an autopsy be self-fulfilling? Can an economy go sour due to one bad-apple-attitude, or would it be because of the lost jobs?

I’m guessing this is where the University of Chicago meets Euripides, or if it prefers, palmistry. There’s a global comeuppance in your future, you small fraction of Earth’s population who have expended the lion’s share of its resources. That’s what will introduce the American quality of life to harsh earthbound reality.

Keeping American consumers in debt is less a magician’s act of driving the economy, than it is a swindler’s function of distracting the poor dupe until he’s lost his shirt.

But this swindler is not planning to catch the next bus out of town.

This banking scam isn’t over until the shirtless victim is thrown out the saloon door and into the street, where’s he’s got no redress but to face line after line of well armed riot police.

Obama rally invites silent partners only

Posted on October 25, 2008 by Eric Verlo

DENVER- “Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will speak at an 11:30 a.m. Sunday rally in Denver’s Civic Center park … Gates for Obama’s Denver rally open at 10 a.m. Members of the public should enter at the Greek Theater on West 14th Avenue Parkway between Bannock and Broadway … For security reasons, attendees are asked to not bring bags and to limit personal items. No signs or banners will be permitted.” Does it sound like they’re trying to set up an Obama-flocked-by-thousands St Louis/Berlin style backdrop? I think this scene begs for an ANTIWAR reminder. OBAMA: NO WAR ON IRAN/AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN/SUDAN

Will there be somewhere to position an antiwar message? A background spot along the perimeter of Obama’s intended backdrop? Will Obama be speaking from the Greek Theater or in reality from the capitol steps? It seems more likely that this “Civic Center Park” engagement is really going to comprise War Memorial Park, the state capitol and the legislature building, surrounded entirely by fence, with Bannock, Broadway and Lincoln blocked off. Where buildings don’t provide barriers, rows of large trees block visibility from across Colfax and 14th Avenues.

Will this be the size of the real nogo zone ???

A PEACE NOW message can be put forward to attendees streaming in at 14th/Bannock/Broadway obviously. But to try to project to Obama’s intended national audience looks to be a stage-managed shut out. I’ll be curious to see the anti-riot police muscle they’re going to bring to enforce Obama’s corporate brand of populism.

The All-American Hitler Youth uniform

Posted on September 21, 2008 by Eric Verlo

COLO. SPRINGS- You won’t find Youth Football scheduled on Sundays. Are they concerned about conflicting with Sunday church service or with the NFL?

Televised Pro Football doesn’t defer to the Lord’s day, in fact, it’s rechristened it. That’s not to pretend that football is America’s religion, but hasn’t its violence become our nationalist ethos? I think football’s armature is obviously the uniform of our soldiers and paramilitary police.

The day seems to grow ever farther off, when US imperial Fascism will be unmasked for what it is, at least when common Americans will come to recognize it: white supremacy through Capitalism. What will ultimately be revealed as having been America’s propaganda programs aimed at its children, akin to the Hitler Youth of the Nazis? No Child Left Behind tills the soil of impressionable minds with its scorched-earth mis-education, the Boy Scouts plant seeds, and the Junior Marines harvest. But American football fertilizes with ideology.

Roman Catholics excuse Pope Benedict XVI (himself a Pius XII apologist) having belonged to the Hitlerjugend in his youth, by explaining that a wider percentage of German children belonged than really ascribed to Nazi extremism. Might not the same rationalization be made about America’s young footballers? Few of the young athletes grow up to join the SS, but a good many of them will conform from the sidelines and lead the nationalist cheers.

Can the NFL even pretend to be an innocuous spectator sport where it is obviously ritualized warfare?

Patriotic American flags adorn the back of every NFL helmet. Not the front. Though both teams of the game are marked with the national flag, only the side on the offensive is noticed carrying it. The TV camera frames the flag as the viewer follows the advance. Television convention has it that in closeup, defenders are usually shown facing us. Whichever team we may be cheering, the TV would seem to prefer to project the hopeful ambition of the ventured aggression, sooner than the held-breath of the position defended.

Boyscout uniforms, like those of the Hitler Youth, glorified the soldiers of their day by emulating the functionality of their rugged khaki clothing. Can the same thing be said of scouts today? US soldiers, like their compatriot law enforcement officers stateside, wear bullet-proof armor. Combat soldiers, like riot police, wear padded exoskeletons under increasingly intimidating garb. Who are the 10-16 year-olds playing soldier these days?

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